Nutrition and Disease

The societal mission of the chair group Nutrition and Disease within the Division of Human Nutrition and Health is ‘to decrease the risk of (chronic) disease and improve the health of those with a disease through better nutrition’. Our scientific mission is ‘to conduct interdisciplinary human observational and experimental research on nutrition in disease aetiology, during treatment and for prognosis’.

The chair group comprises a team of experts in the field of epidemiology, nutrition, medicine, physiology, biostatistics and medical biology. We conduct observational epidemiological studies, experimental studies in individuals at (high-)risk or with (preclinical) disease, and meta-analyses. Novel methods of dietary assessment and data-analysis, as well as (bio)markers of exposure, function, metabolism, genetic susceptibility, body composition, and (pre-) disease are being developed, evaluated and used in these studies in collaboration with colleagues within the Division of Human Nutrition and Health.

We define two main research themes:

1. Disease aetiology and prevention

Human observational and experimental studiesto study the role of healthy and sustainable nutrition, genetic susceptibility and lifestyle factors in the aetiology and prevention of chronic nutrition-related diseases, underpinned with research on pathophysiological mechanisms.

2. Clinical care and disease prognosis

Clinically orientated research focused on short-and long-term recovery of chronic and acute diseases through healthy and sustainable diets and well-accepted nutritious foods combined with physical activity.

These two themes are the core of the Chair group. Furthermore, our approach is focused on public engagement by integrating and translating scientific evidence into evidence-based guidelines on healthy and sustainable diets.

We make sure that we are optimally trained, and connected to conduct well-designed studies, and analyse and interpret the data with novel techniques and utmost care. Therefore, several people in our team focus on integrating (big) data from different sources and disciplines, data-analyses and interpretation of findings.

Research themes

Our group is highly committed to provide high quality education closely related to our research themes. Together with the Chair ‘Nutrition and Health in the Lifecycle’, we are responsible for education on epidemiological and public health concepts and methods. This gives students the opportunity to be registered as Epidemiologist A by the Netherlands Society for Epidemiology.